Leader of Men
by Artemisdesari
Summary: One shot. Post 6x15: The French Mistake. Some spoilers. Dean thinks about Castiel and the way that Balthazar used the brothers and Bobby helps him arrive at a conclusion.


_Spoilers for The French Mistake lie within. I adored that episode, really adored it! However, now I need to make some observations and who better to use than Dean?_

**_Disclaimer:_**_ They killed Misha! And Kripke! Really? Does anyone really think that I'd let them kill "the attractive crying man?" Didn't think so._

Leader of Men.

Dean Winchester has handled a lot of bad situations in his life, bad being the understatement of the century in this instance. When the proverbial hits the rotating blade Dean is often the one to take charge and at least attempt to get everyone out. It is not an easy thing, having to be the one to take charge in a crisis, even if his choices sometimes turn out to be the wrong ones. So really it is not a wonder that Dean has turned to alcohol to cope with it all, even if he turned to it long before Hell.

So in a way he can half understand the sort of pressure that Cas is under right now. The way that the angels who have sided with him look to the rebel angel for solutions to the ever growing threat of Raphael winning the war cannot be easy on him. It is almost similar to the way that so many others spent time looking at Dean for a way to win the apocalypse. Castiel's most recent decision, however, to use the brothers as bait for Heaven's best assassin leaves something in Dean frozen.

Sure, Cas has done dick things to him in the past but _this_ is something else. Somehow it surpasses the manipulations of Zachariah's orders and Castiel's naivety and becomes something else entirely. It becomes a betrayal and abandonment almost worse than all the others that Dean has suffered through. It labels him and Sam as 'expendable' in the angel's eyes, just another pair of soldiers to throw in front of the canons.

Castiel has signed them up for a war that neither brother knows how to fight and Dean needs answers desperately. Unfortunately, Cas is not coming when he is called and even after everything that is hardly the biggest surprise in the world.

"If you're gonna _mope_ about it, you mind doing it some place that I can't hear you?" Bobby demands from his chair behind his desk.

Outside the storm is still howling, the tarp that they have hastily erected to keep out the wind flaps worryingly and the air in the room is chill.

"I'm not moping," Dean snaps in response, draining his glass and refilling it from the already nearly empty new bottle. "I'm pissed."

"Because your _boyfriend_ let Balthazar use you two as a distraction?" Dean pulls a face because it is not even like Bobby should have to ask, whatever terms he may put his observations into. Dean can freely acknowledge that being used as bait has hurt him, he can even acknowledge that it is the fact that Castiel simply turned his back and _let_ Balthazar use them this way that is the source of a great deal of Dean's anger. That the other angel would throw the brothers to the wolves is not something that surprises Dean, Balthazar has never given the impression that he _likes_ them, but he had hoped that they meant something more to Cas.

"He didn't even think twice about it, Bobby," Dean grumbles. "He just _let_ Balthazar shove us through the mirror. He _used_ us as a distraction and it didn't even bother him."

"For crying out loud, Boy! It ain't like you haven't done the same thing more than once," the older man's eyes are shrewd as he looks up from his books and watches the younger pace. "I'm not the angel's biggest _fan_, but he died _twice_ to help you, so how about you get your head out of your ass?" The reminder that Castiel has given up far more for Dean than the hunter ever has for the angel is like a blow. "The war that angel's fighting ain't a minor pissing contest. Sometimes sacrifices are made in war, Dean, you of all people should know that."

The hunter _does_ know what Bobby is trying to tell him, he knows that Castiel is in a tight spot and probably doing all that he can to keep his head above water. Except there is a difference between knowing that things are bad for his friend and getting caught in the middle of the entire mess. Castiel was not created as a leader, or a general, he was created to be a soldier, to follow orders not to issue them.

"Did it even occur to you to _offer_ to help?" Bobby asks after a long moment and it stings to think that the man who has almost been a father to him would think that Dean is that selfish.

Castiel's simple confession after their final confrontation with Crowley was enough to make Dean offer, even if only the once. The offer was rebuffed because he knows that at the time there was nothing that Castiel could think of that the boys would be able to do to help him, not to mention that it was slightly half hearted. All things considered, however, the offer had been made and though he did not ask Castiel certainly took them up on the offer eventually. It just was not in the manner that Dean had expected him to do so.

Bobby is still watching him, eyes narrowed as he takes a sip of his own drink. Sam went to bed a while before this, tired after long days in a world not their own and not in the mood to put up with Dean when he is irritated. The hunter is not in the mood to be watched and criticised, not in the mood to have his shortcomings pointed out to him. He knows that he has been putting his own problems first, he knows that he has been relying on Castiel as the 'go to guy' upstairs for far too long.

Castiel is _not_ at his every beck and call anymore, has not been for a long time, no matter what the two of them may want. The angel is a leader, now, a general and Dean has seen how that can change people, he has seen how it can change _him. _It should be no wonder that Castiel has become distant and cold, that Castiel would use his friends in this way because he has no real other choice. It does not stop it from hurting, does not stop Dean from feeling betrayed.

As he wanders out into the rain Dean knows that all he wants now is to understand.

_Artemis_


End file.
